Terry Gipson, a one-time state legislator, is challenging New York’s incumbent governor

Terry Gipson only served for two years in New York’s Legislature, but it was long enough to butt heads with Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

When Mr. Gipson opposed a 2014 Cuomo plan to cut corporate taxes on manufacturers in some parts of the state—but not his—a Cuomo aide “called and threatened not to pass my bills, not to deliver grants to my community,” Mr. Gipson recalled recently. “It was very much like he was king of a kingdom.”